


sleep don't visit

by astrologians



Category: Oxenfree
Genre: Gen, art kid jonas, bonding over nightmares, recovering together, star wars movie marathons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 16:12:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6159289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrologians/pseuds/astrologians
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She should be tired. She should be exhausted. Alex hasn't slept in well over twenty four hours. The time she was supposed to have spent sleeping the night before had been taken up by trying to stop ghosts from wearing her friends, new step-brother, and Clarissa as meat puppets for the rest of their lives, surviving time loops, and enjoying quality time with a still-dead sibling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sleep don't visit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [minorthirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minorthirds/gifts).



> shoutout to roan (minorthirds) for descending into oxenfree hell for me and also giving this fic a glance over!!
> 
> ok yeah and title song is "welcome home" by radical face

Alex can't sleep.

It isn't for lack of trying. She's been laying in her bed, under the covers, lights off, eyes closed for what feels like hours. She knows it couldn't have been that long - maybe thirty minutes at most - but time tends to bend and twist when all she wants to do is close her eyes and _rest_. Seconds always feel like minutes, and minutes are hours, and honestly, just laying in her bed waiting for sleep seems to be making her more awake, and that is completely unfair. 

She should be tired. She should be _exhausted._ Alex hasn't slept in well over twenty four hours. The time she was supposed to have spent sleeping the night before had been taken up by trying to stop ghosts from wearing her friends, new step-brother, and Clarissa as meat puppets for the rest of their lives, surviving time loops, and enjoying quality time with a still-dead sibling.

Maybe that's why she can't sleep. It’s hard to close your eyes and sleep soundly after that. Are the ghosts still _there_ somewhere? Waiting in their bodies until they all let their guards down? If she closes her eyes _now_ , will it be _her_ who opens them again, or some bitter ghost with shit luck pretending to be her?

Alex sighs. She’s thinking too much. She’s always thought too much and she hates that.

Everyone is alive. She should be grateful for that. _They're all alive._ Except Michael, but he died before the Ghost Island Incident of 2016, so she didn't count that failure.

Alex can't tell if letting Michael die again was the best decision. Every grief counselor she had visited had made the same point: that there wasn't anything to be gained from imagining different scenarios - playing the “what if” game - and that it wasn't her fault he died. This time it is, she knows it, and no matter how much she tries she can't stop participating in another round of “what if”.

And here she is, thinking too hard too much too fast. This is getting ridiculous.

She kicks out of the covers, moreso rolling off the bed rather than getting up like a normal person. Her room is stifling, reminds her too much of that last vision the ghosts left her - her last chance to save Michael, and she had knowingly let him walk out of everyone’s lives again.

The hallway is dark and the hardwood is cold underneath her bare feet. Her mom and brand-new stepdad are still on their honeymoon, so their absence explains the silence downstairs. There are only two people in the house, and she’s one. If Alex has to guess where the house’s second occupant resides, she figures the best place to start is his ( ~~Michael’s~~ _Jonas’s_ ) room.

Even from downstairs she can see the attic bedroom light on. Music is playing quietly, trickling out of the slightly ajar door. She’s too far away to make out the words, but the rhythm doesn't seem to fit Jonas at all. He doesn't strike her as the sad indie genre. Sad, yes, but not indie. Maybe angry punk rock, to fit with the tough city kid attitude. Something filled with rebellious drums, and definitely not quiet voices over delicately plucked guitar strings.

Climbing the stairs, Alex stops at the door. What if he doesn't want to be bothered?

_If he doesn't want to be bothered, he'll tell you,_ she assures herself. _Jonas is like that_. Even if he wants to brood alone in his man-cave, he’s just going to have to get used to her checking in on him at ungodly hours of the morning, just like she’s going to have to get used to his need to play music at those same ungodly hours.

She reaches forward, and pushes the door open gently. The music is loud enough to cover up the noise of the door opening, her stepping forward and leaning against the doorframe. It's not necessarily Jonas's back that she sees, more his side, but even so he doesn't react to her presence. He’s too busy scribbling something at the desk, back hunched over and sitting cross legged in the desk chair, which is a position that doesn't look entirely comfortable. Balls of paper litter the floor near him, despite there being a trash bin within tossing distance.

She clears her throat. He doesn't respond.

Alex knocks on the doorframe. Still nothing. In fact, he seems to lean forward instead, as if intentionally ignoring her to focus on whatever it is he’s working on.

She crosses the room. She’d done this routine a hundred times before with Michael. He’d always get lost in whatever assignment he was working on, and she’d always drag him out of the academic pit he’d dug for himself before he got stuck there all night.

This is going to be a first tonight, though. She’d never imagined having to do this to Jonas. The routine is still applicable, she figures as she leans to get a peek at what he was doing, even if it’s for a different brother.

“Wow,” she says, honestly surprised, placing a hand on Jonas’s shoulder. “I didn't know you could draw.”

Jonas jumps, nearly falling out of his chair - would have, if he hadn't grabbed onto the desk like a lifeline (and if Alex hadn't quickly pulled him back into the chair). “Jesus Christ.”

Alex grins. “Nope, just me, but I hear the resemblance is uncanny.”

“Don't do that.” He groans, burrowing his head into his arms on the desk. “ _Please_ don't do that. Not after the past two days. Give me, like, a month before you start creeping up like that.” He sits up, hands still covering his face, and groans again.

Alex holds up her hands, giving him an apologetic look. “Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to startle you, but you were playing...whatever this band is and I couldn't get your attention.” She looks down, kicking at one of the paper balls on the floor. “Could have thrown one of these at you, but I don't think you would've appreciated _that_ any more than just walking up behind you. Nice boxers, by the way.”

“Thanks, they're old,” Jonas sighs from behind his hands.

“Didn't need to know that.”

“Didn't need to sneak up on me.”

“Touché.” She turns back to the paper Jonas had been sketching on. Now that he isn't covering most of it, Alex can make out what he’d been trying to draw. She almost pulls away.

The lines are light, the picture an obvious work in progress, but she can make out the vague shape of one of the ghosts from the island. It’s floating in the forest, trees framing the suspended figure as best as it could, considering the ghosts had had no visible figure when the two of them had seen them. There’re figures in front of it, one standing and the other on the ground. Alex isn't sure if they’re supposed to be her and him, or Maggie and Anna, but it doesn't matter. When it came down to it, Maggie and her friend were just like Jonas and her. Two unfortunate kids who had gotten caught in a situation too big for themselves. The only difference is that they had been the unlucky versions, the alpha test - the ones who suffered and learned and prepared the stage for the next schmucks who found themselves repeating history.

Alex doesn't comment on the drawing, choosing instead to move and collapse on the bed. It’s just the way she remembers.

Jonas drags his hands down his face, letting out a stuttering groan that’s more breath than actual noise. He twirls the chair around, giving her a look that contains a quirked brow and slight frown. He turns back around so he can dial the music volume back, before saying, “Your hair’s down.”

She returns the look with a smile. “Astute observation, my dear Watson.” She shrugs, adding, “it’s uncomfortable to sleep with my hair up. A lot of girls do it, but I just can't.” The state of his causes her to frown. It’s an atrocity. “You're not wearing your beanie.”

“S’not generally bedtime attire,” he shrugs. “So, yeah. No beanie.” He absently reaches up, smoothing down some of his bedhead. Jonas turns, picking up the pencil and returning to idle sketching. It isn't a dismissal, his body is still mostly turned in her direction, but he seems to want to get whatever image he has on his mind onto the paper.  

Instead of pursuing the conversation, she turns and looks around the room. There are bags pushed into corners, with clothes already spilling out of them. Jonas is, understandably, nowhere near finished with his unpacking. There are a few posters on the walls. Some are leftovers from Michael - back when they'd tried (and failed) to clear out his room. Some are new, and some are rolled up on the ground with rolls of tape next to them. The bookshelves look just a little bit fuller.

The room is Michael's old room still. It's his and probably will always be his to some degree. Alex knows this. When he sank beneath the water's surface, he hadn’t been the only one who drowned. Just a week before. going up there felt like submerging in the lake he died in.

Things are different now. Somehow, the room is Jonas's too. She can see him finding his place in it. The entire room seems brighter, homey, like it's reviving and Jonas is its resuscitator.

It's a nice change.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks, not taking his eyes off the paper. Alex appreciates that. Makes this conversation seem like it could be happening at any point in their lives, like it’s a _normal_ exchange of thoughts between _normal_ people and not a horror sharing session between two kids who just started living together, both suffering from some kinda post-traumatic insomnia.

“Nope.” Alex keeps her eyes fixed on the ceiling, staring at the point where the roof meets. “Can't relax.” At least tomorrow (today?) is Sunday. She has one more day to try to correct the sorry excuse she calls her sleep schedule. “You?”

She sees him shake his head out of her peripheral vision. “Nah. Same reason.”

Jonas taps his pencil against the paper, and Alex turns to see him glaring at the drawing. She’s not sure if it’s because of what he’s drawing, or if it’s some Artist Thing™ he’s annoyed with, but the frustration is evident.

She hesitates for a second. They shouldn't be talking about this. They really shouldn't be talking about this, no matter how much they probably need to.

Alex asks the question. “Nightmares?”

Jonas stops drawing.

She wants to take the question back. To take the words and shove them back inside her mouth, but she can't or couldn't because she’s _Alex_ and she doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut. Now the words are out, and hanging between them like half-coherent blips of static between lines on her radio dial.

He shifts in his chair, before sighing, letting the pencil drop from his hand. “Yeah. Nightmares.” Jonas turns, giving her half of a bitter smile. “You?”

She makes a face. Nightmares wouldn't be the way she described it. “Memories. Thinking too much.” Alex purses her lips, “Michael.” It sounds like an afterthought.

“Well,” Jonas sighs. “Shit.”

Alex sighs back. “Well, shit indeed.”

“It still feels weird staying in here,” he confesses. “I can move somewhere else. The guest bedroom would be fine-”

“I think you mean the guest _broom closet_ . It’s too small for you Jonas.” She makes a dismissive gesture with her hand, waving away Jonas’s rebuttal. “It’s fine, really. Besides, Michael-” she makes sure to say his name normally. She won't let her voice catch on his name, she _won’t._ “He’d want you to have this room, Jonas. Really. He’d give you his blessing if he could, but...y’know. He can’t, so you're getting my blessing on his behalf.”

Jonas doesn't seem to have a ready response to that, and Alex is grateful.

It takes him a moment to respond. “Do you…” He exhales, unsure if his next words are going to be the right ones. “Do you, I don't know, wanna talk about it? It’s cool if you don't, I don't want you to feel pressured or anything.” He taps the paper with his fingers. “I know it helps for some people, getting everything out. Drawing helps with that. If I can get the images out on paper, then maybe they'll leave my head.” He rubs his neck. “If that, I don't know, if that makes sense. I guess.”

“No, no, it does.” He’s worried, and trying his best at the whole brothering thing. She’s grateful. It’s good to know she got a good egg for a stepbrother. “I just…I don’t think talking is gonna help right now. I'm already thinking about everything too much. Don't really want to fuel the fire.”

She needs a distraction, a reason to stop thinking about what happened and move on - even for just a few hours.

So, she asks, “When’d you start drawing?”

Jonas picks up on the intentional shift in the conversation, and bless him, he doesn't comment on it. “I don't know, exactly. Always just sort of did it, like how kids draw on everything. I think I started really getting into it around middle school.  Took a few classes during school, but mostly, I taught myself.”

She sits up, giving him her full attention. “That’s cool. What do you normally draw?”

“People. Back home, it was easy to find someone to draw. Everyone was always moving or posing, so there was never a lack of models. When I was a kid I used to draw Han Solo all the time, so I guess he really got me into figures.”

Alex snaps her fingers, trying to recall the name. “Han Solo...that's a Star Wars character, right?”

Jonas lets out a laugh. “Is that a Star Wars character…” He trails off, seeing her affronted expression. “Oh my God, you're serious. Yes, he’s a Star Wars character.” He turns to her completely, drawing, and their previous conversation, completely abandoned. “Have you never seen Star Wars?”

Her silence is enough of a response. “Alex…”

“I've seen Star Trek, okay. They're sort of similar.”

Jonas looks at her like she just kicked a puppy. “ _Alex_ , they're similar in the fact they're both in space, and that's it.” He leans back in his chair. “I can't believe you haven't seen Star Wars.” He stands up, moving around the bed to rummage something out of a duffle bag.

“I can't believe _you've_ seen the movies, and I haven't _._ I always figured you were too cool a juvenile delinquent to watch something like Star Wars.” She watches him search through the bag, wondering what he was looking for.

She gets her answer when she sees him pull out a box. “Okay, first, that's rude and judgmental. Star Wars is for everyone, even us cool delinquents.” Jonas grabs one of the blankets from on his bed. “Two, as your new stepbrother, it’s my job to introduce you to cool things.” 

He tosses the box into Alex’s lap. She looks down to see the face of a boy holding a glowing sword staring back at her. “You have the _box set.”_

“Blu-ray with three discs of additional bonus features. Grab a blanket.”

“ _Oh my God, Jonas.”_ Alex snatches up the box, and gets to her feet. “We can't marathon the entire Star Wars movie series. Isn't there, like, five movies?”

He tosses her a blanket, which she catches. “Seven, technically. Thanks for reminding me.” He goes back to his bag, and pulls out another disc. “Can't forget Episode VII. I haven't seen Poe Dameron’s face in a while.” 

Alex blinks at him. “We're actually doing this. Holy shit.”

“We’re really doing this,” Jonas agrees. “You're going to have to set up the TV because I don't know how it works, considering I've only been here two days and one of those days we weren't even here.”

She looks at the box, scanning the movie titles. “Is this the order we're going in? Why is Episode IV first?”

“Because, Alex, _The Phantom Menace_ can go fuck itself. Let's go.”

Without another word, Jonas pulls another blanket from off his bed, and starts heading downstairs. Alex stares at the empty place her (step)brother just stood, before chasing after him, blanket and box in hand. When she reaches the bottom of the attic stairs, Jonas isn’t there waiting for her.

She hurries down the second set, and quickly searches the house. She finds him in the living room, tossing the blanket he carried downstairs onto the couch that resides there. Even though he hasn’t turned around, Jonas speaks like he expects her to be there, “Do you know any pizza place willing to deliver at…” He trails off, glancing around for the time. “Whatever hour it is. What time is it?”

Alex shrugs. She left her phone upstairs charging on her nightstand, and she’s not going to make another trip up the stairs just to find out the hour. “Don’t know, but _Anthony’s_ is twenty-four hours. Got the number memorized.”

“God fucking bless.” Jonas grabs the box of DVDs and the blanket when Alex offers them to him, freeing her hands.

She laughs as she walks into the kitchen. Due to her father’s insistence, they still had a house phone stationed on the wall. It’s the product of three nights of fighting, insults being thrown, and days hiding away on an island that she could never go back to with a ghost.

“What do you want on your pizza,” she asks, walking back into the living room.

Jonas doesn’t look up from where he’s almost religiously pulling out the DVD cases from their cardboard tabernacle. “Just cheese is fine with me.” He looks up when he hears her making a displeased noise. “What?

“That’s so…” she trails off. “Mundane. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Back on an island with a bunch of World War II sailors,” he rolls his eyes. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with just cheese. But, if it’ll make you happy, we can spice things up.” He sits back on the couch. “ _Extra_ cheese. With cheese stuffed crust.”

“Come on, Jonas.” She starts typing in the phone number, not bothering to stop the grin that pulls at her face. Jonas is already groaning before she can get the pun out. “I dairy-a to try something a little different."

“I think I preferred the ghosts.” He grumbles, grabbing the remote and fiddling with it until the television turns on. The sudden burst of noise causes him to jump, which he does a poor job at hiding. “At least they weren’t telling me bad puns. They wouldn’t have treated me like this. I deserve better, Alex, I really do.”

The remote for the DVD player is on the table in front of him, and she hands it to Jonas before collapsing on the other end of the sofa. “Knowing your luck, you’d probably get a ghost who _liked_ my bad puns, and even partakes in the act of punning.” There’s a voice that speaks on the other end of the phone, and Alex frowns. “No, I’m not talking to you, _Kenneth_. I need to place an order for an alarmingly bland pizza.”

Jonas laughs while he stands to mess with the entertainment set up, a blue case and remote in hand. “Smooth.” He barks out another when he sees the obscene gesture she shoots him.

It takes him a moment to figure out the system, but the next time Alex looks up, Jonas is thumbing his way expertly through the previews. “Whenever you’re done with your phone date, movie’s ready.”

Alex nods, finishing up the order, gratefully hanging up on Kenneth. “Let’s get this star war _star_ -ted.” She grins. “See what I-”  
  
He cuts her off by pressing _play_.

**Author's Note:**

> im thinking about making this the first part of a series? just a little collection of one shots about these kids recovering and bonding/growing together because lord knows what they're dealing with. also the archive has like fifteen fics. 
> 
> saying that: hmu at @punquisitor to jam with me about the oxenfree kiddos bc boy am i always ready to talk about them.


End file.
